Since this fun project is around already all year long, chances are you’ve heard of the Splendid Sampler. If not, just a couple of words to introduce you in all that fun!
The Splendid Sampler is a year-long quilt-along hosted by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. There are nearly countless designers taking part in the fun and sewing with the Splendid community. Each week you get 2 new 6” x 6” quilt blocks. You can read more about the Splendid Sampler here as well as visit the Splendid Sampler Facebook Group to get all the blocks and exchange ideas and inspiration.
The new block for today is designed by me! What a fun it was to make it!
The name of this block is "Under the Apple-Tree", you can download the pattern here.
When my hobby of doing patchwork grew more and more in something I could maybe someday make a living of, I had a cosy dream: I would invite some fellow quilters during Summertime into my garden and we would sit under the apple-tree, have a sewing retreat full of laughter and fun and enjoy the magic of a Summer-weekend. Today I really live my dream of a full time career as a quilter, and the word apple became even more importance to me: I sit in front of my apple each day to create all my designs and ideas.
The block has all the colors which you will find in an apple and it looks like there are eight yummy slices.
It must also be fun, to hand-sew under an apple-tree, comfortably seated in a Summer chair, protected from the heat by the shadow of the leaves. I have to imagine this scenario, since I actually made this block already in last November, more during a rainy and cold weather, not the perfect apple-tree-under time (although perfect for a glass of tea and some cookies on the couch). I mention this, because... when I made this block one year ago, I must have been so absorbed in the cosiness of hand stitching that I forgot to take pictures of each single step. Or ... I took them, but then they disappeared in the overwhelming file load of my computer storage. Anyhow - I only found pictures from the finished block. But I guess most of you will know, how to do English Paper Piecing or can find a youtube tutorial. Sue Daley has an excellent series of youtube tutorials about EPP.
What I love about the Apple-Tree Block are the unusual shapes for the EPP-technique. Most of us have done hexagons, at least one time. But this block hast a lot of new shapes to play with. And they will be perfect for fussy cutting, playing with color options. Can't wait to see what you are doing with yours!
(BTW: be careful, the white triangles of the sewn block look symmetrical, but they are not; one of the long sides is slightly longer than the other. So mark them or cut them from paper with different colored sides so you don't accidentally mix them up. On your paper sheet you can recognize them by different colors, white and light grey. Also the both triangle shapes for the corner squares are different, but look so similar that they could be confused. So mark every shape clearly to not get in trouble. Refer to the colors on your pattern sheet).
